


nothing more, save this

by naruhoe



Series: the three of them [1]
Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, M/M, Marked!Jessamine, Multi, The Hound Pits Pub, The Loyalists (Dishonored) - Freeform, creepy Void powers (inspired by The Heart), possessive Jessamine, tags and ratings to be updated with content, the Outsider being cryptic and meddling
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:01:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23257348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/naruhoe/pseuds/naruhoe
Summary: The AU where Jessamine is marked instead of Corvo.(I.E: I want an excuse for a Daud/Jessamine/Corvo threesome and I refuse to allow canon to get in my way)
Relationships: Corvo Attano/Daud, Corvo Attano/Daud/Jessamine Kaldwin, Corvo Attano/Jessamine Kaldwin, Daud/Jessamine Kaldwin
Series: the three of them [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1715938
Comments: 52
Kudos: 58





	1. pale blue void

It is a cold voice that wakes her from her dreamless sleep. 

“Hello, Jessamine.” It says.

When she opens her eyes, she finds that she is standing amid the fathomless expanse of the pale blue. It lightens and darkens in places, but it is endless. It stretches as far as the eye can see. Things bob on the event horizon, things that she intrinsically knows do not belong in this place. A lamppost. A flowerbed of thorny roses. A whaling ship. 

“Where am I?” She asks of the pale blue. Bubbles rise to the surface, but there is no surface, no floor. 

The cold voice laughs. It sounds... unnatural. A carefully affected mimicry of the real thing. And yet she does not feel frightened. It is hard to feel anything.

“This place is the end of all things. And the beginning.” 

Black eyes. So dark that they make black too mild a word to describe them. These eyes are endless as their pale blue backdrop and a thousand times more intelligent. A cold, frightening intellect. The sight of them is rather like looking into the ocean and finding something staring back at her, and for the first time, she feels unease as the eyes materialize into a pale, sharp face. 

It has taken the shape of a boy, slim-shouldered and dark-haired, his skin so waxy pale it seems to reflect the drifting particles of light that float here like dust motes, or perhaps plankton. But the oil sheen of his fathomless eyes give him away. 

He is not what he appears. 

“Who are you?” 

And again, the cold voice laughs. The boy tips his head back slightly to accompany the gesture, but it is still left feeling mechanical. When he is finished, he uncrosses his arms, spreading them wide as if to encompass the endless expanse of the pale blue that surrounds them. “You know who I am. You know where you are.” 

Unbidden, her lips form words. Just two of them. But they are enough. “The Outsider.” 

_ And the Void _ .

The Outsider, that strange entity, curves his lips in a smile, affecting a pleased expression. “Very good.”

“But do you know who  _ you _ are?” 

Who is  _ she _ ? It strikes her that she cannot recall. Jessamine, he called her, but she is floating, untethered and unbound to that identity in the warm golden light that surrounds her. Why should she care? 

An island in the pale blue drifts by, close enough to reach out to touch. It is a gazebo, marble floors and roses blooming in the bushes on either side. But what catches her attention is what appears to be a headstone, with a little golden plaque. 

_ IN MEMORY OF  _

_ HER MAJESTY JESSAMINE KALDWIN _

_ MOTHER TO EMILY _

_ EMPRESS TO US ALL _

She is standing in front of it now, though she does not know how she got there. Her fingers trace the grooves of one particular word, the enunciated consonants and the dips of the vowels. Emily. 

_ “Corvo... it’s all- coming apart… Find- find Emily. Protect her. You’re the only one… You’ll know what to do. Won’t you?  _

_ “Corvo?” _

Jessamine’s eyes are wet when she claws her way back to the surface. She coughs up daylight, hiccuping air like she’s never breathed before now, gasping to fill the void that’s become of her lungs. Through tear-clouded eyes, she focuses on the ground beneath her feet as she forces herself to her hands and knees.

It is no longer white marble. The concrete beneath her hands is slicked with blood, which clings, tacky, to the palms of her hands as she rises up onto her knees. It would seem a larger room if only the crumbling ceiling, interrupted occasionally by patches of the pale blue, were not so dark. The ceiling remains unreached by the light of the brazier that even now crackles, sending a shower of sparks off to the side, illuminating the face of the man slumped in the horrid iron chair in the island’s center. 

He is filthy and manacled, his greasy hair hanging in a dark curtain over his face, but despite the new burn on his cheek, livid red, his is one face that Jessamine could never bring herself to forget. How gaunt his cheeks are. How sharp the line of his jaw. His clothes are filthy, the same blue coat he had worn when he returned to her.

“Corvo.” She breathes, but when she reaches out to take his face in her hands, his skin is as marble. Cold and unyielding. She has less than a moment to internalize this, however, because, like mist, he melts away beneath her fingers, leaving the chair empty, the ruin of the room gaping with the pale blue.

“How intriguing… You remember, don’t you?”

And then she is falling. A cry catches in her throat, but then she has found land again. Her hands and knees smack painfully against the ground as the raw noise of pain escapes her, but she shakes it off; looks up with Corvo’s name on her lips. 

She finds a familiar face instead. One of the last faces she remembers seeing.

A long scar runs down the right side of his face, barely missing one grey eye. As for the face itself, it could not be called handsome, but it is clear from the weathered nature that this is one man who has experienced life and then some. Grey eyes look back into hers, but they are flat, missing the intensity of real life.

He is Daud, the assassin. The Knife of Dunwall. She knows his face from the wanted posters. She knows his face from the last day she walked among the living, the day that he murdered her. 

Jessamine climbs to her feet, circling the desk that the assassin- her  _ killer  _ -is leaning over, a guarded look to his grey eyes. Is this some sort of mockery? A taunt, perhaps?

Is this to be her punishment? To be confronted with the faces of her last regrets and failures until the Void sees fit to devour her at last?

As she regards the planes of Daud’s face, Jessamine feels his blade again. The grate of it against her ribs as it slipped into her flesh and punctured her heart. She had clutched at his arms as he yanked it back out, dizzily watching the grey glitter of his eyes as he turned, the flick of his wrist sending a fine spatter of blood,  _ her blood, _ across the marble tiles. And the screaming- Corvo’s raw howl and Emily-- Emily’s lingering cry as the other assassin spirited her away. Where is her daughter?

“Why do you show me this?” She demands of the pale blue. But her voice seems small, however. It does not even echo off of the stones she stands upon. There is a slip of paper lying upon the desk. Jessamine, frustrated by the lack of response, snatches it up.

She finds that it reads only three words, repeated over and over again.  _ YOU KILLED HER YOU KILLED HER YOU KILLED HER YOU KILLED HER YOU-- _

It builds within her chest, the anger. The injustice. With a frustrated scream, she crumples it up, throwing it aside as she stalks to the edge of the platform. “Am I meant to forgive this man for what he did??” Jessamine shouts into the pale blue. “Why have you brought me here??”

_ “Tell me _ !”

The island dissolves beneath her feet, and she falls for what seems a small eternity before her feet collide with what seems like wood, this time, sending a shockwave up through her kneecaps.

The wood is carpeted. Faded red carpet. And there is a door. It is askew, revealing a room with several knocked-over pieces of furniture. And a small head of dark hair.

Jessamine’s footsteps have quickened without her knowing. She lets out a small cry and falls to her knees upon seeing Emily’s face. 

Illuminated by the lamplight of that little room, she is hunched over a paper, several multi-coloured crayons spread out on the moth-eaten carpet around her. The paper is not a drawing, but a letter written in blue crayon.

With shaking hands, she retrieves it, clutching it close as her eyes move across the childish handwriting there.

_ Corvo, I am very sad. They say that you're dead like Mother, but I'm going to put this note in a bottle and throw it into the river because I do not believe them. Living here is very strange. I do not like it, so please come for me if you can. _

_ -Emily _

She covers her mouth, at first, with the arrival of the first tears, but there is nothing to be done when the sobs wrack her body, and so Jessamine Kaldwin sits there on the floor holding a letter from the daughter that she could not protect, and grieves.

She grieves for her lost child. For her lover. For the interruption of the quiet piece of her dreamless drift through eternity. 

Jessamine Kaldwin remembers, clawing each individual memory back so that she might hold them tight against her breast in remembrance of the person she once was. For she will never be that person again. Not in this life, nor the next.

When the tears stop, it is because more refuse to come. She feels empty, but she replaces the paper there on the floor next to the caricature of her child, and stands. There is nothing more to be done. 

Nothing more, save this.

“Tell me what I must do if I am to go back.” Jessamine says into the pale blue Void, and there is no waver in her voice. It is not a plea. She will do anything. Give anything. Whatever is demanded, she is willing.

She is unsurprised, this time, when those fathomless eyes appear again. The rest of the Outsider materializes, bodily components fitting together until he appears as whole. But Jessamine knows that he is not as he appears. 

The Outsider, with his depthless black eyes, leans forward. Jessamine has the strangest sensation that she is being studied, and so she tilts her chin up slightly, adjusts her posture, and watches him right back.

They stare for a moment, Jessamine Kaldwin and the black-eyed Outsider. And then, the Outsider smiles, and she cannot hold back her hiss as something burns itself into the back of her left hand.

“Be interesting.”

And once again, she is falling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is just the beginning, but tell me what you think. I'd expect another chapter or two out of this particular work, but if I receive a positive response, there may be more. Kudos and comments appreciated!!!


	2. rats, ghosts, and friends in low places

It is the 13th day of the Month of High Cold, and Chambers can’t stop fidgeting. He has a little shard of carved bone tucked under his jacket, and his hands go to it continually, fluttering like pale moths to check his breast pocket every so often, lovingly tracing the shape of his lovely little charm. He found it the other month while scavenging in one of the abandoned apartments off of Bottle Street. The dreams came afterwards… 

He dreams some nights of being a child on the wharfs, fascinated by the sea and the stories the old sailors would tell. More clearly than any of the rest, however, he remembers the whales. The great beasts used to frighten him with their moaning and howling, but he just as soon realized after seeing them butchered on the docks that they were like any other fish, to be caught and butchered for their pound of flesh. Now, he remembers the oil sheen of their huge pupiled eyes, and he’s not so sure. 

Snatches of whalesong haunt his dreams, and, sometimes, his waking hours. He could swear that it comes from his little charm, but it warms him so, sending tingles up his spine when he touches it against his bare skin. Like holding his hands above a nice fire. 

The little charm is humming steadily against his breast today, and Chambers, having clambered up onto the lower of the balcony railings to give himself a better view of the street, has quite forgotten its presence, though his hands still go to it occasionally like a nervous tic. Or sheer force of habit. Though Chambers is a runner boy for the gang, he has been assigned to watch the streets today. Due to a mishap with the elixir still, the next batch of elixir will not be finished until tomorrow. Slackjaw was in a right foul temper by the whole deal, putting the men responsible for the mistake on half elixir rations for the next week, and Chambers had been all too happy to escape the distillery today.

There’s a chill wind in the air, and the sun will soon be setting- around 4:00. The Month of High Cold is the peak of cold in Gristol, where the rain turns to sleet and sometimes snow. It would be cold outside today, but his little charm keeps him warm. His body still shivers, but Chambers doesn’t feel it. He feels dozy. Content, even. Which, of course, is when something unexplainable happens.

Granny Rags is a spook. A neighborhood legend. When Chambers was a boy, it was a fun pastime among the boys to dare one other to go knock on her door. They said you could find her rifling through trash in the streets during the late hours of the night, that she ate rats- that her pantry was full of the bodies of the children she’d murdered. But eventually, boys grew up. Some grew up into nice young men. And others, lacking the means to pull themselves up by the bootstraps, joined the gangs. 

Up until now, Chambers had been quite self assured that Granny Rags was just a sad, senile old lady. Now, he’s not so sure. An otherworldly howl echoes through the air, followed by the sound of screaming and banging- shuffling and scratching. If not for the first noise, he may have suspected a catfight. Unfortunately for poor Chambers, it turns out to be something far harder to explain.

Chambers has never seen a ghost. But like they say, there’s a first time for everything.

He just about jumps out of his skin when Granny Rags’ door swings open and out stumbles the filthy form of a woman. Weeper, he thinks at first, immediately put on edge by the tattered clothing, grimy skin, and the dark snarl of her hair. But there are no bloodstains down the front of her clothing, and she is not coughing, merely breathing heavily, a dazed look to her eyes. There’s a gleam of gold at her neck and ears, and she’s clutching at her head, where a dark bruise is starting to form at her temple. It’s when she looks up that Chambers recognizes the impossible.

It’s her face. Chambers knows that face from the posters put up around the city. He knows it from the newspapers before the plague. He knows it from the graffiti printed painstakingly into the brick walls beneath Clavering Boulevard where he sometimes hides the elixir he can get away with stealing. 

The face of the Empress, Jessamine Kaldwin, first of her name. She died six months ago. 

A moment passes. Then two. Chambers is frozen, staring at the beleaguered woman sitting in the street below. Her heavy breathing has scarcely calmed, and she’s staring fixedly at the smoggy Dunwall skyline as if it’s the most fascinating thing she’s ever seen. Another moment. Then two. Chambers finally dares to move. His fingers are trembling as he wraps them around the bars of the iron-grated balcony, swinging one lanky leg over its side, and his heart feels like it’s about to beat out of his chest. The little charm gives a reassuring pulse against his breast when his boots make contact with the pavement, but he damn near stumbles over his own feet as he cautiously makes his way over.

She must hear his footsteps, for she turns her head and fixes him with her gaze. Chambers freezes, caught and held by her stare. Her high collar is in tatters, but her eyes are the color of a cloudy Dunwall sky. She is crying.

Skittering. Scratching. Chambers tears his eyes away just in time to see the sea of rats pour out of the open doorway of Granny Rags’ apartment.

In that split second, he knows he has a choice. The sensible choice, of course, is to turn tail, haul ass, and live another day. The second… 

With a curse, Chambers darts forward, grabs the woman by the arm, and hauls her to her feet. Together, they run stumbling towards the archway that lies between them and the distillery. Chambers can feel his heart in his throat- can hear the skitter of tiny paws behind them- the sweat breaking out on his brow- his own labored breathing. She hardly weighs anything, but even that meager weight could very well mean the difference between life and death for them.

_ tink... WHOOSH. _

Something explodes behind them, and a wave of heat washes over their backs. The death squeals of dying rodents are like music to his ears as the swarm scatters, further dissipated by a few more well-placed explosions to their midst. Chambers distantly realizes that his cap has caught fire, and pulls it off to beat it against the cobblestones.

The woman is coughing, waving a dainty hand in front of her face to clear the smoke, when several pairs of heavy footsteps approach.

"If you ain't the biggest fool I've ever seen, you certainly are the bravest." Chambers, having managed to put out the small fire trying to eat his cap, goes still. He certainly recognizes  _ that voice _ . Slackjaw. "Get up, boy." Chambers, jamming the cap back over his ears, gets up, wisely stepping back towards the other two men as the boss takes a step forward, already trying to figure out the puzzle that is the woman kneeling on the ground in her ragged finery.

Slackjaw is patient enough to wait until she's finished coughing to offer her a hand. Surveying her face, it is clear enough that he recognizes it, but for once in his life, it seems he has nothing to say. One of the Bottle Street thugs, equally surprised, coughs.

“Hey, boss? Ain’t that-”

Slackjaw waves a hand, cutting off whatever the man was about to say. There’s a shrewd look to his eye, the same sort he gets when he’s about to make a particularly profitable deal, and his craggy features are carefully neutral. "Crowley. Get a blanket and a bottle. The good stuff. Two tumblers."

Crowley, too shocked even to grumble about being relegated back to runner boy, goes. Slackjaw, meanwhile, has crossed his arms. The woman with the face of Jessamine Kaldwin has donned a similar mask, as well as tucking one of her hands under the crook of an arm, hiding it from view. Not in time to conceal what’s been tattooed there in black ink from shrewd-eyed Slackjaw, however. 

“You always need a drink to go with a story, or at least that’s what old Slackjaw thinks.” He says. “I imagine you have quite the story to tell.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After starting and restarting several times, I decided to just write and post. It might be bad, but at least I'm updating. We'll get some more insight into Jessamine's newfound powers in the next chapter, I promise. 
> 
> To recap: Because Jessamine is very much in the Outsider's favor, a jealous Vera attempted to kill her after Jessamine materialized at Vera's shrine. Jessamine and Vera Moray had it out (will be recapped from Jessamine's POV in the next chapter). Neither really won that catfight, and Jessamine was taken in by the Bottle Street gang, mostly because I cannot help myself from writing Slackjaw into the story.
> 
> Thank you so much to those who commented! I appreciate your feedback so much! Looking forward to hearing what you have to say about this chapter. Comments and kudos welcome!


	3. a useful tool

Jessamine thinks, oddly enough, that she could have liked Slackjaw had it been another life. Another other life, where she wasn’t the Empress of the Isles and he wasn’t a murderous gang leader. He’s charming, she’ll give him that. Charming in the way that a shark can be charming. Sooner or later, the shark will get hungry.

Her hair is tangled, and her skin is three shades darker than it normally is with accumulated grime, but Jessamine sits straight, coughs only a little when she takes that first burning sip of Old Dunwall whiskey, and puts on her Court face as she discusses the circumstances of her death with a gang leader.

Slackjaw, as it turns out, is not an easy man to fool. The wanted posters paint him as a thug, and it is not as if he has the face of a gentleman either, but beyond all of that, there is an intelligence in his eyes that Jessamine cannot describe as anything other than disarming. 

She is given a blanket, and they sit in his office, next to a still that is clearly not being used for brewing whiskey. She sits, and Slackjaw leans against his desk. Jessamine tells him that she was saved by an unexpected ally- the truth, if not the whole truth, and Slackjaw listens, clearly not believing a word of it. Slackjaw does not question her story. He does, however, nod offhandedly at her left hand, hidden under the corner of the blanket draped around her shoulders, and say: 

“And what about that?”

Of all her faults, it is unfortunate that she has never been a good liar. But her story is something out of the cautionary tales that the Abbey feeds the populace. And Jessamine is not the person that she once was. 

Her heart beats, but it feels… different. _She_ feels different. It is a difficult thing to say, that one’s own body doesn’t feel at home to her like it once did, but if the mark on her hand has anything to say about it, perhaps there is something to be gained out of it after all. 

She doesn’t know how she did it, but when she woke in the back alley of that hovel, surrounded by strange blue lights, she had taken a step and ended up halfway across the alleyway. With the boy- the one who had pulled her away from the rats -she had looked into his eyes and known things that someone like her hadn’t any right to know. 

_Jamison Chambers. His father beat his mother to death when he was 10... He found a strange whalebone carving. He wears it under his clothing and it whispers to him at night. His dreams are troubled, but he does not fear the cold… Every time he coughs, he wonders if he has caught the plague- if he should hide himself away in a cellar and shoot himself in the head._

It is the same with Slackjaw.

_Slackjaw. Whores raised him. He’ll never know that his father was a prince… He deals in weapons, flesh, strong drink… If ever in doubt, which is often, he uses the knife._

Jessamine allows her eyes to rove across his form, taking in the knife at his belt, the way his long knobbly fingers curl over the edge of his desk. She takes note of the carefully hidden gleam in his eye and the spatter of blood on the hem of his pants. _He does not think you are who you say you are. But he thinks you a useful tool nonetheless._ The voice whispers. 

So she looks him in the eye, and says with an echo of her former self: “This is what I will use to take back what is mine.”

Slackjaw laughs. He laughs so hard that he damn near doubles over.. It is not the malicious sort of laughter, but true amusement indeed, it seems. Jessamine still does not join him. _When our work is done, there will be time for laughing aplenty_. When he is quite done, he straightens again, and grabbing the bottle of old dunwall, splashes a liberal amount into his cup. Jessamine has yet to finish her own. 

“Aye.” He says with a smile, and raises his glass. Jessamine raises hers on impulse, and the crystal tumblers chime as they clink against one another. “To the Empress.”

***

Slackjaw is quite forthcoming after that, positively chatty as he leads her on a small tour of the distillery- though only the inside, she notes. To Jessamine’s knowledge, this is new territory for the Bottle Street gang, a suspicion further endorsed by the graffiti scored on the walls about Hatters and Bottle Street boys. The men watch her suspiciously, some wide-eyed, others narrow, and she learns their secrets. 

_His mother’s dying words to him were: ‘Give us a whiskey, darling.’_

_He feeds a stray dog every night. He named her Katrina._

_He steals elixir from the still. When Slackjaw finds out, it will not end well for him._

She cannot slip the feeling that she is intruding, interrupting on their private thoughts. She is. They weigh upon her as surely as if they were her own, but whatever discomfort she feels, she crushes ruthlessly. She thought herself a sympathetic Empress before. Her trust- that _sympathy_ had killed her as surely as the instrument that had enacted it.

Jessamine’s thoughts linger in the past, and as she waits in the distillery’s control room for Slackjaw to return, she rhythmically clenches the fingers of her left hand, watching the lines of the Outsider’s mark pull tight across her flesh.

The crazy woman who had attacked her had borne this mark too. It had burned brightly against the back of her hand, the shard of bloodied mirror that Jessamine had stabbed her with sticking out of her stomach before she dissolved into a swarm of rats. As had the assassin who had driven his knife through her gut and left her to bleed out on the stones of the gazebo. 

Daud. The Knife of Dunwall. 

She remembers the long scar that had marred his face, his red coat, the way he held his knife with one hand and the mark that burned bright upon the other, the twist of his features into concentrated lethality.

Jessamine clenches her fingers again, raggedy nails pressing against the palm of her hand, and watches the mark flare brightly against the back of her hand. Gold, and teal- a hint of pale blue. This is what she will use to take back her throne and all those that she loved-- _loves_. But she will need gloves first. And allies, allies that she can trust. Short of that, allies she can manipulate. She can hear their secrets now, after all. 

The click and echo of the loudspeaker outside shakes her from her thoughts. “ _-ttention, Dunwall citizens. This is a special announcement from our honorable Lord Regent._ ” Her body moves without her consent, pushing open the door and slipping into the hallway through the outside door. A beam of sunlight practically blinds her, but Jessamine hardly notices it, holding up a hand as she moves to the railing, eyes searching for the loudspeaker that hangs above the middle of the yard.

Burrows’ voice fills her with such rage that she finds herself clutching the railing as if hanging on for dear life. One of her nails, long and brittle, loses the fight against the unyielding iron and chips with a dry _crack_.

_“This is the Lord Regent speaking. It is with regret that I announce my term as Lord Regent has been extended through the Month of Harvest, and potentially beyond. In this continuing crisis, the Overseers of the Abbey of Everyman remain in service of the state, and are empowered to enforce whenever and wherever necessary. We owe our thanks to High Overseer Campbell for the generous loan of their services.”_

It is no longer rage that she feels- it is hate. For now she remembers who had sent away her guards. Both Campbell and Burrows had been present that day at the gazebo. There is no doubt in her heart about who had been responsible for what happened there that day.

These men betrayed her trust, took everything from her, including her daughter, her lover, and her life-- and now, they dare to usurp her power, sit upon her throne, and issue  _ decrees _ ? Such rage she feels- such hatred, that it seems to scald the back of her throat where it rises like acid, scorching the lining of her stomach and setting her scarred heart to beating again.

“ _Corvo Attano, former Royal Protector, has been found guilty of high treason- the murder of our fair Empress, her Majesty Jessamine Kaldwin -and by virtue of our oldest laws, has been sentenced to public execution on the 23rd of the Month of High Cold.”_

Footsteps behind her. Jessamine turns on her heel, coming face-to-face with Slackjaw. Something is thrumming, but it cannot be her. Even her hate cannot compare to this feeling- this power. Iit lights up her veins, courses through her blood, and when she speaks, it is as if she speaks in two voices. Hypnotic, they twine together in an otherworldly hum. “What is the date?” She compels him.

Slackjaw answers immediately. “18th of the Month of High Cold.” He tells her without any of his usual inflection, and then blinks. His eyes go wide, then suspicious, then shrewd, darting down to the mark on her left hand, which she finds is alight with a fading brilliance.

“Your eyes.” He says.

“What about my eyes?” Jessamine snaps, impatient. If it is the 18th of High Cold, there are only 5 more days left until Corvo’s execution. She has 5 days to find a way to break him out of Coldridge, and everybody knows that there’s no way to break out of Coldridge.

But hadn’t everyone said that the Tower was impregnable too?

Her thoughts are still spinning when Slackjaw, looking vaguely unnerved, grunts and jerks his head, leading her down the hallway to the control room, where he nudges open a locker and retrieves what looks to be a pocket mirror- the sort that the common man might use to shave. 

She takes the mirror more out of obligation than anything, but she finds when she flips it open that there is something odd about her eyes. She only catches a glimpse before it fades away entirely, but for a moment, it looked as though they had been lit up from the inside, shining through with the pale blue power of the Void. 

Jessamine hands the mirror back to its owner, who takes it without comment. She forces her back straight, crosses her arms, and turns out to look over the distillery- not really because she’s interested in any of it, but because her heart feels like its about to beat out of her chest and she needs something to look at that isn’t Slackjaw, who is still looking at her like she might tear his throat out.

_Slackjaw. He is a practical man. The common man. He fears the Abbey and the Plague. And now, he does not know what to think of you._

Jessamine speaks, partially because she knows she cannot afford to hesitate, but mostly because she cannot abide the whispering any more. “I need a favor.” She says.

“What have you heard of the man they call Daud?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More action next chapter! Comments and kudos appreciated, as always! A big thank you to regular commenters. Your feedback is invaluable.


	4. allies at the Hound Pits

The following morning, a small bundle has been left on the floor just outside of where she spent the night. It's new clothing. A hat, gloves, and what can more or less be called a mask. It is a triangular strip of black cloth, and Jessamine trails her fingers along the rough edges of one of the sides before she smooths it out against the pillow of the cot and turns to examine the clothing. There are a pair of pants, rather worn at the knees, a blouse, shoes, stockings, and a jacket, which has notably been patched several times at the elbows.

Commoner’s clothing. Jessamine feels her lips quirk in a wry smile as she begins to strip out of her filthy finery, remembering the last time she had worn such clothing. 

It had been the Fugue some years before Emily’s birth, when her father had still reigned as Emperor. Corvo had been forced to procure the clothing, much to his reproach, and they had snuck out of the castle together into the Fugue evening. There had been fireworks in the sky over the Estate District, that night. Jessamine had ignored them, but her bodyguard could not keep his eyes off of them. Pops of red and blue and green and yellow against the dark Dunwall skyline. She had admired the strong line of his jaw outlined in the red light and thought him very handsome indeed.

There is no wash basin with which to clean the grime from her skin, so she steps out of the dirtied clothing, leaving it a heap on the floor as she reaches for the cleaner clothes. They are not good for anything but burning, at this point. As a second thought, she removes her earrings and bends down to unclasp the brooch with the blue stone from the front of her filthy blouse. She leaves both on top of the cot. She has little use for them anymore. 

The mask, she tucks into the back pocket of the pants. If the men at the distillery have not already seen her face, surely the rumors have had the same effect. Common clothes are as good as any mask anyways. With her hair down, no makeup to cover the bags under her eyes, she could be anyone. She tugs the fingerless gloves on, flexing her fingers experimentally, testing the slide of leather against her palms. 

Upon opening the door to leave the back room, she almost collides with someone, getting only a flash of startled green eyes before they stumble back, hands going up to clutch at their chest.

A boy. Sandy hair. Hollow green eyes. He’s lanky-limbed and taller than her, but the way he holds himself gives off the impression of meekness. The two stare at each other for a moment. The boy is the one who looks down, fixing his eyes on her shoes, of all things.

“Slackjaw told me to fetch you, miss. Once you woke.” He mumbles.

Jessamine recognizes him at last. The boy who saved her from the rats yesterday. It is an odd thing to realize that he has not given her his name yet.

She studies him, brows drawing together as she picks up on a noise. A peculiar sort of humming, the sort that could very well go unnoticed if the back of her hand were not humming along with it. She knows that if she were to slide the glove off, the Outsider’s mark will have been lit up there in shades of teal and gold. 

“Very well.” She tells him, and follows him down the hall, past the rows of whiskey barrels, down a flight of stairs to the same little room wedged under the stairs between the rows of barrels. The boy steps aside as he reaches the door, watching her with those shadowed green eyes as if she’s something he’s never seen before. A ghost, perhaps.Jessamine doesn’t blame him. She doesn’t quite know what she is, herself.

Jessamine enters the room to find Slackjaw poring over a large sheaf of parchment that’s been spread across his desk. The desk itself looks like it’s been scavenged, perhaps from the abandoned house of someone better off, and its surface is littered with papers.

“Sit down,” He says gruffly, not even looking up from the map. Jessamine primly takes a seat in the chair set in front of the desk and waits. With a grunt, Slackjaw retrieves a bottle of Old Dunwall and two crystal tumblers from below the desk. He looks tired. It’s a wonder what that crooked shark-toothed smile of his does to lift the years from his face. Without it, despite the clashing patterns of his shirt and pants, he looks like any other man. 

“It’s still beyond Slackjaw why you _want_ to go to the Flooded District,” He says, splashing a liberal amount of the amber liquid into either glass. “but he’s still got a few tricks up his sleeve yet. Managed to call in a favor with an old contact. They be willing to take you as far as the Hound Pits.”

Jessamine takes the tumbler without protest, recognizing it for what it is. The crystal glasses clink against each other, and the whiskey warms her as it burns down her throat, settling in her belly. She tries to enjoy it. She has grown averse to the cold, recently.

Slackjaw leans forward on his desk, a speculative gleam to his eye as he watches her finish the second swallow of whiskey. He had downed his in the manner of a man immune to its burn, swallowing it all in one go. “If you be who I thinks you are, you remember old Slackjaw when you’s sitting on the Imperial Throne again.”

Jessamine smiles. _When_ she’s sitting on the Imperial Throne again. “I could hardly forget a face like yours.”

***

It is evening when she leaves. 

She covers her face as she leaves Bottle Street, making her way down to the intersection of Clavering, where she walks down to the reed-covered shore, adopting the nervous gait of the common woman. It is muddy there, hardly sand any longer, but she hardly notices how her boots squish into it, captivated by the sight of the boats docked under the bridge. It smells of rot, there.

Helpless outrage fills her at the sheer _number_ of bodies that line the bottom of the boat, discarded like chattel. There are so many of them… She cannot take her eyes from one particularly small corpse. It is wrapped in a sheet, but small booted feet poke out from the end. The buzzing of flies is so loud in her ears. Her heart gives a painful throb. 

_Misery. Everywhere._

It is with a heart full of regret that she turns, forcing herself to scan the muddied riverbank. Further out, lights glow distantly on the other shore. Smog rises from chimney stacks. This had been her city, once. And now she must do whatever she has to to get it back.

The sound of a boat’s motor pulls her from her thoughts, and she watches a small boat- hardly more than a skiff, really -pull up into the little inlet. _Amaranth_ , she reads, painted in loving white letters along its side. The pilot is an older man, grey haired with a cream-coloured scarf, and he raises a hand in greeting upon seeing her standing there. Jessamine returns it, picking her way towards him, whereupon he stands from his skiff and offers a hand.

Though surprised by such courtesy, Jessamine shakes his hand, noticing that he has grey eyes like the water on a cloudy day. “You are Slackjaw’s contact?” She asks of him, and he bobs his head. His eyes take in the uncovered parts of her face.

“Aye, that’s me. Samuel Beechworth’s my name.” He sounds slightly distracted, gaze lingering on her face, but he eventually shakes his head and turns back towards the boat, motioning for her to follow him. “Best get comfortable, miss. The Hound Pits is a ways down the river from here.”

As she sits down, he starts the boat, carefully directing the skiff out of the inlet. For all that he is in his 60s, he is adept, handling the boat with a skill that tells her he’s been doing this his whole life.

“We’ll go dark and quiet. It’s safer that way. The guard have been putting out more patrols on the water, of late.”

She learns that Samuel Beechworth is a humble man. He lives at the Hound Pits, and has been a sailor all his life. _Samuel Beechworth went to the sea to forget a hopeless love. He succeeded._ He tells her of the city, answering questions that undoubtedly sound odd with a sort of brevity that she cannot help but admire. She learns that the Flooded District, formerly Rudshore, has been quarantined since last year, shut off from the rest of the Districts. This is where they take the plague victims, he tells her. “Where they take them to die”.

They do not speak much as they cross beneath Kaldwin’s Bridge, carefully ignoring the spotlights that light up the water. Jessamine remembers its construction when she was a girl. The project had taken nearly a year to complete, spanning the breadth of the Wrenhaven River, and there had been a speech to commemorate its completion. She had stood behind her father as he spoke, dressed in the white garb of the Imperial family, and bored nearly to tears. What she would give to stand there again, Emily on her right, Corvo on her left.

They arrive at the Hound Pits about an hour later. Samuel once again impresses her with the way he maneuvers the skiff through the tricky landscape of the pub’s front, docking it in a space hardly a foot longer than his boat. He offers her a hand as he steps out, but she does not see it, too captivated by the sight of the moon hanging up there in the sky. How long it has been since she last saw the moon. Never has it seemed fuller, nor brighter. Her eyes move to the silhouette of a hound painted on the side of a nearby building, accompanied by the script: ‘The Hound Pits Pub’.

 _Somewhere in the basements below, hound kills hound, and money changes hands_.

Samuel clears his throat, and she turns to face him. “I can take you no further. The crusts are too bad to brave, this time of year. Perhaps you’d like something to eat before you go, however. These are dangerous times, and I feel bad enough about sending a lady off alone as it is.”

He smiles ruefully. “I would come with you, but I fear I’d cause you more trouble than I’m worth.”

She nods her acquiescence, and together, they trudge up the stairs. Samuel opens the door for her in a way entirely too gentlemanly for a stranger. _He suspects_. Inside, the pub is filled with a low haze of smoke. The red cushions of the booths are cracked, but the wood floor is swept clean, the tables washed. There are several men hunched at a corner booth, talking in low voices, but as they see her enter, they cease speaking. The whispering resumes as she turns her back.

Feeling faintly uneasy, Jessamine follows Samuel to the bar where a dark haired woman is cleaning glasses. “Lydia,” Samuel greets her, leaning forward on his elbows against the bar counter. The woman looks up, but her eyes pass over Jessamine, just enough of a cursory look to appear confused at the strip of cloth she wears across the lower half of her face.

“Samuel. Who’s your lady friend?”

“I’m just passing through,” Jessamine says, receiving another look from the woman in response, this one rather more searching. Samuel nods sagely, sighing as he eases himself onto a bar stool. “She’s looking for someone in the Flooded District.” He says. 

“Oh? Is that all?” Lydia has a dry way of speaking, but from her disbelieving tone, it is clear that not many people willingly go to the Flooded District. “And you, Samuel? You almost never come in. What’ll it be tonight, then?”

As Samuel and Lydia continue their conversation, Jessamine allows her eyes to wander around the bar. There is a young woman sweeping the floors nearby. Her hands are raw and scarred on the handle of the broom, and Jessamine catches her blue eyes briefly before she looks down at the floor, sweeping with even more enthusiasm as her cheeks color.

_Poor Cecilia. She lost her home in the Flooded District when the barricades went up. She barely made it out alive. But she knows a way through. That might be useful to you._

Jessamine startles as a man flops down into the seat next to her, not even hiding his staring. He is scrawny and bespectacled, with a pinched face that makes him look older than he is. From the flush that’s risen high on his cheeks, he appears to be several pints in already.

“You…” Says the man in a voice as thin and reedy as a toddler crying. He raises a hand, pointing a finger at her face. “I feel like… You shouldn’t be here.” And then he laughs. He is very drunk, but still, he peers through his spectacles, and Jessamine feels something inside of her shift. “I apologize. That was inappropriate, wasn’t it?”

_He carries a piece of the Void inside of him. It makes him restless, sickly. He invents when he cannot sleep, which is often. Piero Joplin, the youngest to pass through the Academy of Natural Sciences._

“Why shouldn’t I be here?” She asks him, half-curious, half-compelled. 

He blinks at her, and leaning forward, says softly. “I dreamed of suturing a heart back together. It beat under my fingers, but when I woke, the table was empty. You… feel familiar.” He stands abruptly, swaying on his feet. “I must get back to work.”

And then he is gone. A plate of food is set in front of her, some bread and sausages and a bowl of stew. It smells fantastic. Lydia clucks and shakes her head. “Sorry about that. Piero’s… an odd bird. He’s harmless, though. Mostly… Don’t mind him.”

Jessamine finds her fingers moving to the back of the mask before she thinks better, but Lydia is still watching her like a hawk. She’ll need whatever strength she can build for what lies ahead. That much is sure. So she unties the knot at the back of her head and lowers the cloth mask onto the bar counter.

Lydia’s eyes widen. Her lips part. Samuel, in the seat next to Jessamine gives a small, almost imperceptible shake of his head, and Lydia presses her lips together again, jerkily picks up a glass, and begins polishing it again.

***

After she bids Samuel farewell, accepting another of his apologies that he could not have done more, Jessamine makes her way out back where she encounters the red haired serving girl emptying a dustpan full of dirt into the street there. She waits against the side of the building for her to turn around, taking in stride the little gasp of shock and the step back the girl takes upon seeing her. 

“Oh, miss, I didn’t see you there,” She says in a shaky voice, clutching at the dustpan so hard that her knuckles turn white. It’s clear that she’s put ill at ease by the mask, her grip tightening as Jessamine moves closer, so she stops and takes it off entirely. It’s the same reaction as earlier in the pub. The widening of the eyes. The parting of the lips. 

“I need your help,” Jessamine tells her, keeping her voice gentle.

Cecilia covers her mouth with one of her hands. “But you’re dead.” She says softly, almost too soft to be heard. “The Empress is dead.”

Moving slow as if she were approaching a scared animal, Jessamine shakes her head, pulling off her glove. She catches the other woman’s hand in her own, letting her feel the warmth of her skin. Beneath her hands, the trembling slowly stops. “I need a way into the Flooded District,” Jessamine says firmly, unaware that her eyes have once again lit up with the power of the Void. “I had a feeling that you might be able to help me.”

The trembling has stopped. Cecelia nods slowly, though unlike Slackjaw, her face is not blank. More like smoothed over, the panic gone from her features. Composed. She shudders a little, closing her eyes, but when she opens them, she is calm, standing straight-backed, and her hair is so red that it is a wonder that Jessamine had almost missed her earlier. She nods again. "I can help."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We'll be hearing from our secondary protagonist in the next chapter. Stay tuned and thanks so much for your patience! Comments appreciated!


	5. dreams (of a new age)

Daud has dreamed of the Void before. Back then, when he had still been wracked by that cold final dismissal, he’d spent his days in search of shrines and his nights dreaming of otherworldly black eyes. But eventually, the dreams had left him too. Nowadays, when the dreams come, Daud knows them for what they are. After all, he can’t imagine what the black eyed bastard would actually do if he were to sneer in his face. 

Oh, but how he’s dreamed of the Void’s dark-eyed incarnation. Kneeling, smiling up at him with those fathomless eyes and touching him with hands like chips of ice as he breathes raw power into Daud's lungs. Oh, but the Outsider's is a cruel kiss. He wakes, always, with the Wrenhaven in his nose- not the scent of cold stone and eroded sunlight, and he knows it to be a dream.

That’s why, when he wakes to the pale blue, he thinks it another dream. He watches, folding his arms, with flat disinterest in his eyes as a tallboy drifts by. It smells like brine and cold stone here, and the emptiness of it seems to ring in his ears. “Come out,” Daud says gruffly into the pale blue void. “Let’s get this over with.”

Perhaps after this is over, he can return to a dream that’s halfway decent. Not that his dreams have been peaceful of late- far from it. The laugh that greets him is unexpected. The Outsider does not usually laugh in Daud’s dreams.

“This is not a dream, old friend,” says the black-eyed bastard himself, materializing in a swirl of inky blackness out of thin air to hover, arms crossed, in the air before him. Daud, clearly unconvinced, however, narrows his eyes. “Prove it,” he says. Petulantly. 

It’s his damn dream, isn’t it? That’s what he thinks, at least, until the Outsider narrows his oil slick eyes at his disobedient Marked, and waves a hand. 

Daud drops like a stone, immediately overwhelmed by the flood of power that rushes through him. It smashes through his mental barriers like a tidal wave, leaving his head throbbing in the aftermath, ears ringing as he gasps for a reprieve. The consciousness that had briefly brushed against his own- if it could even be called that -had been vast and alien, nothing close to human and unlike anything his dreams could have conjured up. One thing’s for damn sure. This isn’t a dream, and if it is, it definitely doesn’t belong to him. 

“Outsider’s crooked cock,” he gasps, trying desperately to remember how to inhale. The Void gives a little chuckle, and cool fingers tilt his face up, allowing those fathomless eyes to appraise him. 

“Such thoughts you have in that mind of yours,” muses the Outsider, and has the nerve to tilt Daud’s chin up even further, seemingly ignoring the low warning growl that bubbles up in his throat. “You didn’t imagine yourself as the one on their knees in your dreams, did you, Daud?”

Daud snarls and jerks away at this, making to draw the sword at his belt, but when he reaches for it, he finds nothing there. He lunges instead, but the Outsider pulls another of his vanishing tricks, and Daud falls through thin air to land on hands and knees, breathing heavily. Making a visible effort to calm himself, Daud reminds himself of the dangers of pissing off an alien deity, tempting as it is.

When he looks up, he finds himself in the middle of a pavilion. A gazebo, surrounded by blooming red roses. Blood pools around his knees. Its source? There is... no source. Daud knows because he has seen this place before in his dreams. He's stood in this very spot, blood pooling around his boots as he looked down into the vacant eyes of Jessamine Kaldwin. But here, now, he knows that this is no dream. This is the Void. And the Empress's body is missing. Paranoia strikes a discordant note through him, and he climbs heavily to his feet, ignoring the sensation of blood, still warm, soaking into the knees of his trousers as he looks wildly around.

But the Void hangs empty around him, starless and soundless. The Void offers no answers.

“Why am I here??” Daud demands. He’s a tired old man, tired of fighting, of killing, but most of all, of these fucking mindgames. He’d thought the Outsider done with him a long time ago, and yet, here he stands. “What do you want with me??”

Daud startles at the sound of a voice just over his shoulder. 

“Because, old friend, against all odds, you’ve managed to capture my interest again. Well-” He pauses, a cruel little twist to his mouth. “-Perhaps not _you_. You’ll see soon enough. As a token of my sincerity, I’ve a gift for you. It is something that you’d do well to remember.” The Outsider leans back, crossing his arms over his chest. His black eyes glisten like oil, and a discordant snatch of whalesong floats by somewhere in the near distance. “Her name is Delilah.”

And Daud is falling.

***

It is the 21st of the Month of High Cold when the answer to the Outsider's cryptic visit arrives. It is night, and Daud’s back is hurting from the long hours spent hunched over his desk today. His men are restless, undoubtedly the result of having reduced the contracts taken, only allowing a few of his men out at a time for missions or patrol. Dunwall has never been safe, but with the plague worse than it’s ever been, the Abbey’s increased presence on the streets, and Burrows’ increasingly angry correspondences, Daud has recalled most of them, confining them to the base.

The creaking of the floorboards is the first indicator that everything is not as it seems. When the door opens unannounced, Daud looks up from the letters that clutter his desk and into the eyes of a dead woman. He recognizes her instantly. It is her picture that has been hanging on the board for months, inspiring all sorts of rumors and whispers among the men. Some say that Daud has grown soft, while others claim it serves as a trophy, a reminder of his greatest hunt. There are all sorts of rumors, the most ridiculous of them claiming that the Empress had been his lover once. 

Daud half mistakes it for a hallucination before he notices the men that walk by her side, not just one but  _ two _ . Two of his Whalers, both of them masked, carrying their blades by their sides, but Daud hardly notices them. No. All he sees is  _ her _ . 

Standing there, Daud feels as if he’s been caught in a dream. It is a particularly poor dream, this one, in that it does not make any sense. 

He knows those flinty eyes. The shape of her face, if not the grime that darkens her pale skin, the way that her hair has been bound at the nape of her neck in a low ponytail instead of piled atop her head in a manner befitting royalty. She takes a step forward, and he feels his whole body tense as if to step backwards, away from her.

“You’re dead,” he rasps, sounding pathetic, even to his own ears. She takes another step forward. Another. He panics. Draws his blade, with a ring of steel, though he knows in his heart that he will not fight her even if she rips his throat out with her teeth. 

Six months spent wallowing in regret. Six months spent waking up in a cold sweat, hearing the bodyguard’s anguished cry again and again, looking into her eyes again and again as he plunges his sword into her chest- again. And again. The Empress was different, and now she is here in the flesh. (Back again. For  _ him _ .) He will not refuse her this.

Fingers curl around his hand, slim, and tapered; warm to the touch (warm and  _ alive _ ), and Daud can hardly breathe as she forces his fingers apart and presses them to her chest. Beneath her breast, he can feel the beating of her heart. As if in answer, the Void surges within him, and his own mark flares to life in teals and stormy blues, lighting up as if it recognizes the pale Void blue of the eyes that were utterly mundane not moments ago. This is no petty trick. This is the Void itself, shining through her eyes.

“Do I feel dead to you?” demands the voice of Jessamine Kaldwin, and Daud- Daud speaks without thought,  _ compelled  _ to answer her question. “No,” he answers. “But you’re different.”

Her eyes flash. Her fingers tighten. For a moment, it seems that she might just rip the sword from his fingers and gut him where he stands (impale him like he did to her)- and he would not stop her. He would let her take her retribution, for he could not stand to fight her. He will not watch the life fade from her eyes for a second time. Jessamine stares at him, fingers tightening around his wrist to the point of pain for a moment. And then- she releases him. Quickly, as fast as a snake striking. The suddenness of one pulling their fingers away from a hot iron. 

“I don’t believe you,” she hisses. Daud, staring down at the face of his greatest regret, the very same face hanging on the target board, gets the distinct feeling that she is not responding to his words. There is still hate in her eyes, still loathing, but she steps away, the Void slowly fading back to brown.

“You,” she accuses in a low, shaking voice, startling in how much emotion that one word carries.

“Yes,” Daud answers. He is too tired to say anything else. He does not know what else there is to say. Instead, he watches as she shudders, entire body tensing as she briefly closes her eyes, eyelids fluttering like moths before they squeeze tight. 

“You took her. Sold her. Do you even know if she is still alive?? And Corvo-” Her voice cuts off, and he sees the way that she forces herself to look away, as if the mere sight of him is causing her pain. Daud stands there uncomfortably. He does not try to console her. He knows better than that.

“The Royal Protector is to be executed in four days.” Daud says, voice gravelly, and watches her eyes snap back up to his face, still full of hatred, but there is something else there. In the way of a raw wound, the Empress is no longer as she once was. The Void hangs thick in the air around her. 

“I know that you contemplated death for six months,” she says, and Daud flinches this time.  _ How did she-?? “ _ That you stand here, wishing that I would bring an end to your regret. And my answer is ‘no’. I have not come here for you, Daud.”

“You will not take your life today, or any day moving forward. Until you have helped me take back what you stole from me, your life is forfeit to me.” Jessamine’s hand presses against the side of his face, cool, but not comforting. Her fingers drag along his stubbly jaw before they hook under his chin, forcing him to look at her “Perhaps you might even learn how to live again along the way.”

“I know that you were only the tool. The means to an end. And so-” Daud can practically hear the creaking of her teeth. It is clear to him that it is painful for her to admit what comes next. “-I have come to hire you. I have need of… someone of your particular skillset.”

Daud feels rather like he’s swallowed his tongue. Untangling his thoughts, he puts voice to thought, saying what Jessamine’s bureaucratic upbringing prevents her from. 

“An assassin, you mean.”

It is almost satisfying to watch the way she grimaces. “Yes. You will be paid in full upon my re-ascent to the throne-”

Daud snorts at that. Jessamine’s eyes go dangerously narrow, and her grip on his chin tightens, nails digging into his jaw. “-or you will die trying,” she finishes. “I do not believe that you truly realize how much you took from me, Daud. You may have been a pawn, but in one move, you destroyed everything I held dear. And for that, I do not intend to let you go until I have taken back what’s  _ mine _ .”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone, please feel free to complain if I take this long to update again because it really is ridiculous. I appreciate your comments so much. They really are what keeps me motivated. Special thanks to Willow_writes_stuff in particular for giving me the kick in the butt I needed to finish this chapter!! Looking forward to hearing from you :)


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